Welcome to My World
by Bumpkin
Summary: Why did Bruce seem to make such an abrupt about face in letting Terry in the suit from the night before to the morning?


Disclaimer: As many have said before, if I owned the series, there is no way that it would be off the air! But as it stands…sigh.

Summary: Why did Bruce seem to make such an abrupt about face in letting Terry in the suit from the night before to the morning?

Welcome to My World

By Marns AKA Bumpkin

Rated: PG

Bruce looked through the McGinnis kid's eyes as the hovercraft went down and then barked gruffly into the cowl's comlink, "It's been taken care of, now go home!"

The kid managed to surprise him then, he just hovered for a minute watching the last of the bubbles. Then he said in a dead tone, "Okay. I'll drop the suit off tomorrow when I wake up."

Bruce had cut the comlink at that point and sat back in his large chair with a sigh. His gaze wandered through the cave as he thought over a few things. It had been so long since he had been down here, and every time recently had been because of that kid in one way or another. He abruptly leaned forward and flipped the replay switch on the suit's recorder, and then sat back again.

Thoughtfully he watched everything the kid did from the moment he had put the suit on. He watched as he saw the kid put the suit through it's less strenuous paces, using trial and error to see how things worked and becoming more or less accomplished in a fairly short amount of time. He was a quick learner – that was for certain, Bruce thought to himself. It probably helped that he was fairly familiar with what most of the technology in the suit was capable of, but still – being able to apply that in so little time was impressive. The ease in which he mastered the flight aspect and the subsequent landings – with any kind of grace – was pretty stunning all on its own. Bruce laughed at the kid's little one-word comments to himself as he learned, they were rather droll, and not something that he would have expected from the brash youngster that he had met. Bruce had to give credit where it was due, if only mentally. The kid never needed to know how much Bruce was aware of, after all.

Bruce listened in after the fact to the discussion between the ambassador and Powers, and then to the discussion between Powers and his assistant, Fixx. Interesting - the suit's sensors barely registered any reaction from the kid when they discussed hunting Terry himself down, like his own welfare wasn't a consideration even if they did jump just a bit when they called him a snot nosed punk. But when Fixx assured Powers by mentioning how he had taken care of Terry's father, it was another story entirely. Bruce could clearly hear the kid's molars groaning under the stress as he ground them together, trying master his anger and the suit clearly registered the spikes of his blood pressure and heart rate.

So it rather surprised Bruce that the kid still managed to keep his head when he was confronted right afterwards. 'Enough to make that "just in time for fall" quip followed with the stylish exit,' he allowed to himself with a small smile. The kid definitely had a flair all his own. He soon saw that he had come to the point where he had joined Terry the first time around and allowed his attention to be distracted. He'd already seen most of this and heard it; he really didn't need to go over it again.

Leaning forward he began to call up all known information on Terrence McGinnis. School records on him were conflicting. He was in trouble a lot for fighting, but had no suspensions. His guidance counselor had several testimonies from other students about how a good portion of the fights that McGinnis had gotten into, were for protecting them from bullies. Other notes that his various counselors had made over the years said that he was quick to anger, was mouthy, and that he had little or no respect for authority figures. 'What was their first clue?' Bruce thought as he remembered Terry yelling on a stormy night that he should have known that Bruce wouldn't help him – that he was no Batman, just a whacked out old fraud. Mouthy and no respect for authority figures indeed. It was apparent that you didn't need to know much to become a high school guidance counselor. You just had to be able to state the obvious.

He moved over to other information sources. Arrested at fourteen for a gang related heist, in the company of one Charlie 'Big Time' Bigalow. Hmm, got three months in juvvie for that error in judgment, which was served with almost no trouble. Following a hunch, Bruce called up the records for when Mary and Warren McGinnis' divorce was finalized – bingo. It was official only a few days before Terry went along on that ill-fated break-in.

Bruce sat back and sighed again. He knew Terry didn't have a good record, but he could see and understand almost all of it, at least as much as he could without sitting the kid down and talking things out with him. A wry smile graced his craggy old features; somehow Bruce thought that wouldn't go over all that well – with him or the kid.

He thought of how Terry had wiped out the bike he had been riding to make sure that he didn't hit the old man that had appeared so suddenly out of the darkness that first night. Then when the Jokerz gang had arrived in hot pursuit, Terry had done his level best to keep them from noticing him lurking in the shadows. Even after he had revealed himself by ordering the riff raff to leave the kid alone and to get off his property, Terry had tried to refocus the gang's attention back onto himself. Why had the kid done that? Did he do it because he thought that he needed to protect the feeble old man, Bruce wondered? Or was he an old man reading too much into someone else's actions, hoping and wishing to see something that wasn't there.

Terry had certainly been quick enough with the compliments and his aid when he noticed Bruce's distress after the gang had retreated. He had even gone so far as to make sure that Bruce had his medicine and was settled before he even attempted to leave – which Ace thwarted. In fact it was because of his dog, a bat and the kid's basically good nature that the kid had stumbled onto the cave entrance. After watching the surveillance tapes of that night Bruce had wanted to cringe at his churlish behavior, the kid had been right when he had said that he'd done nothing wrong. All he'd done was stumble onto a secret that Bruce had wanted to bury.

He hadn't told either, and Bruce didn't think that he would either. It just didn't seem like something the kid would do. When he'd found that disc in his father's stuff he'd come to Bruce for help, yes, but he'd been discreet when he'd done it. That told Bruce quite a bit about the boy's nature. He thought of the things that he had seen and learned about McGinnis since meeting him. The kid was a hothead and he lacked discipline, two things that he could easily deal with – but on the other hand he was smart, naïve and idealistic too. Bruce had winced when he had started that whole 'You're out of business' speech. He'd learn. You don't leave your back exposed until everyone is incapacitated; nobody goes down without a fight, not even businessmen. They always seem to have more flunkies than sense.

Bruce thought of one last thing to check before he let the thought that had been percolating in the depths of his mind to surface. Leaning forward once again, his old fingers danced over the well-known keys of the Cray system as he tapped into the G.C.P.D.'s databanks. Once he was in, he accessed the files of the traffic cams on that first night. He swiftly back-traced the route Terry had taken fleeing from the Jokerz ending up at the Juice Bar. Knowledgably, the old man linked all the pertinent files together and pressed play.

He watched in silence as the gang roared up to the club and started hassling the kids standing in line, one of whom was Terry. Bruce watched as the Jokerz leader snatched Terry's date and how Terry had sprung into action, flipping the other boy from his perch on his bike with a powerful throw. Then he saw how Terry had shooed the girl off to safety before he had again drawn the gang's attention to himself. Strategically placing a lamppost at his back Terry had let the second gang member charge him with his mace swinging. Intelligently, the kid had simply ducked and the mace had wrapped around the post behind him, yanking the unsuspecting the gang member from his bike as he roared past. Then Terry had taken out both the third and fourth of the Jokerz to come after him at the same time. All four had been taken care of with a simple economy of moves, 'very smooth kid', Bruce thought with a grin.

That was of course when the rest of the gang decided to make its appearance and the girl that Terry had rescued pushed him on the bike of the first gang member. Bruce guessed that she was telling him to get the hell out of there, quick. Terry roared off putting on the helmet he had found while driving. Bruce saw how Terry was still aware of his surroundings and the persons populating them – even while operating a bike at high speeds – when Terry managed to duck and tangle together the two mace wielding Jokerz that flanked him.

Then even Bruce's jaw had dropped at the next stunt that Terry had pulled on the bike. The stunt was some kind of impressive and it made Terry's earlier wipeout rather incongruous looking as well Bruce thought. If he had enough skill to pull off a stunt like that with a normal bike, what could he do with something like Nightwing's old cycle? Dick could do some stunning things on that old bike with all its, er, improvements – might be fun to see what Terry could make it do.

Closing out the connection to the G.C.P.D. database with a few short strokes Bruce stood. He knew what he was going to do. During the night he had managed to profile the kid pretty accurately he thought.

Terry McGinnis was an intense individual with a very strong sense of self. He was deeply passionate by nature and in his beliefs. He lived more by his emotions than by any analytical thinking, which was more than reflected in his grades. He was more than smart enough when it came to things that interested him – as evidenced by the way he had swiftly figured out most of the suit's features – quick to think on his feet too when faced with surprises, but easily bored with things that he couldn't see the use for. He was a naturally gifted athlete, fighter and gymnast and had very little in the way of fear. He was flip, brash, and cocky, but Bruce had a feeling that once you won his loyalty, nothing would shake it short of death.

Yes, Bruce thought, he will do very nicely I think. Consciously he didn't turn the old Cray system off, just set it to sleep mode – he had a feeling that he wasn't going to be staying away for as long this time around. In a few hours he would head over to the boy's apartment and offer the kid a job. He speculated how long it would take the kid to figure out what he really meant; that he was offering him entrance into his world? A wry smile crossed his face as he wondered how the kid would react to his invitation.

End.


End file.
